To start with, he should review the danger in hate and the advantage in patience. Why? Because hate has to be abandoned and patience attained in the development of this meditation subject, and he cannot abandon unseen dangers and attain unknown advantages.

Now, the danger in hate should be seen in accordance with such suttas as this: Friends, when a man hates, is a prey to hate and his mind is obsessed by hate, he kills living things, and... (A I 216).

And the advantage in patience should be understood according to such suttas as these: No higher rule, the Buddhas say, than patience. And no Nibbaana higher than forbearance (D II 49; Dhp 184); Patience in force, in strong array:Tis him I call a brahman (Dhp 399);'No greater thing exists than patience' (S I 222).

3. Thereupon he should embark upon the development of loving-kindness for the purpose of secluding the mind from hate seen as a danger and introducing it to patience known as an advantage. But when he begins, he must know that some persons are of the wrong sort at the very beginning and that loving-kindness should be developed towards certain kinds of persons and not towards certain other kinds at first.

4. For loving-kindness should not be developed at first towards the following four kinds of persons: an antipathetic person, a very dearly loved friend, a neutral person, and a hostile person. Also it should not be developed specifically (see Â§49) towards the opposite sex, or towards a dead person.

8. First of all it should be developed only towards oneself, doing it repeatedly thus: May I be happy and free from suffering or May I keep myself free from enmity, affliction and anxiety and live happily.9. If that is so, does it not conflict with what is said in the texts? For there is no mention of any development of it towards oneself in what is said in the Vibhanga: And how does a bhikkhu dwell pervading one direction with his heart filled with loving-kindness? Just as he would feel loving-kindness on seeing a dearly loved person, so he pervades all beings with loving-kindness (Vibh 272); and in what is said in the Pa.tisambhidaa: In what five ways is the mind-deliverance of loving-kindness [practiced] with unspecified pervasion? May all beings be free from enmity, affliction and anxiety and live happily. May all breathing things all who are born all persons all those who have a personality be free from enmity, affliction and anxiety and live happily (Pa.tis II 130); and in what is said in the Mettaa Sutta:In joy and safety may all beings be joyful at heart (Sn 145).

10. It does not conflict. Why not? Because that refers to absorption. But this [initial development towards oneself] refers to [making oneself] an example. For even if he developed loving-kindness for a hundred or a thousand years in this way,I am happy and so on, absorption would never arise. But if he develops it in this way:I am happy. Just as I want to be happy and dread pain, as I want tolive and not to die, so do other beings, too, making himself the example, then desire for other beings' welfare and happiness arises in him. And this method is indicated by the Blessed One's saying:

I visited all quarters with my mindNor found I any dearer than myself;Self is likewise to every other dear;Who loves himself will never harm another (S I 75; Ud 47).

11. So he should first, as example, pervade himself with loving-kindness. Next after that, in order to proceed easily, he can recollect such gifts, kind words, etc., as inspire love and endearment, such virtue, learning, etc., as inspire respect and reverence met with in a teacher or his equivalent or a preceptor or his equivalent, developing loving-kindness towards him in the way beginning,'May this good man be happy and free from suffering.' With such a person, of course, he attains absorption.